Tod browning biography

The definitive biography of Hollywood horror legend Tod Browning—now revised and expanded with new material

One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time, Tod Browning (1880–1962) began his career buried alive in a carnival sideshow and saw his Hollywood reputation crash with the box office disaster–turned–cult classic Freaks. Penetrating the secret world of “the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema,” Dark Carnival excavates the story of this complicated, fiercely private man. In this newly revised and expanded edition of their biography first published in 1995, David J. Skal and Elias Savada researched Browning’s recently unearthed scrapbooks and photography archives to add further nuance and depth to their previous portrait of this enigmatic artist.

Skal and Savada chronicle Browning’s turn-of-the-century flight from an eccentric Louisville family into the realm of carnivals and vaudeville, his disastrous first marriage, his rapid climb to riche

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Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning

October 16, 2007

Tod Browning is one of my favorite bio directors, simply because he directed the original "Dracula." He also was responsible for one of the most controversial films in Hollywood history, "Freaks." His resume includes many of Lon Chaney's best silent films as well. "Dark Carnival" reveals that Browning was naturally drawn to the dark and macabre. As a teenager, for example, Browning ran away with the circus and actually enjoyed performing an act where stayed underground in a coffin, for days at a time, existing only on chocolate malt balls. The book is full of interesting anecdotes from the early days of Hollywood. We learn, for instance, that Bela Lugosi was paid only a few thousand dollars total for the starring role in "Dracula," while co-star David Manners was paid several thousand per week. Manners lived to be nearly 100, and Skal reports that when he interviewed him, the old actor revealed that he had never see

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Tod Browning

American film director (1880–1962)

Tod Browning
Browning in 1921
Born	Charles Albert Browning Jr. (1880-07-12)July 12, 1880 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	October 6, 1962(1962-10-06) (aged 82) Malibu, California, U.S.
Resting place	Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery
Occupations	Film actor film director screenwriter vaudevillian comedian carnival/sideshow worker
Years active	1896–1942

Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915^[a] and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films.^[1] Browning was often cited in the trade press as "the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema."^[2]

Browning's career spanned the silent and sound film eras. He is known as the director of Dracula